I lost all of them..

[CaliBlue]

   It started with the passing of my grandfather. He had a stroke due to a blood clot in his brain. He was bed ridden for a year with his right limbs paralyzed and he could not speak very well. We visited him every weekend as I was in college at the time. He loved when I talked to him about the tractors I was driving and even showed him pictures. A year after the stroke, we knew his time was near. His organs had started to fail so it was decided that we would remove his feeding tube. I stopped visiting.. I did not want to watch him get skinnier than he already was.. I wanted to remember him as his lively self. The day that he passed I went to class. It was the start of the semester and if I didn't go I would have been dropped from the 4 hour long class. I told my mother not to tell me if he passed so that I could finish my class that day. It didn't matter, I felt it when he passed. 

   I fell into a deep depression after his passing. It was months before I was able to do anything productive. My friend from out of town introduced me to this guy. We had an instant connection. From the first day we talked there was something special. We had no idea why but we did not question it. We lived 5 hours from eachother though. He kept his distance for so long to respect the distance between us. I was a college student and he had a solid job. We couldn't expect either one to give up something for the other. We talked on the phone every day. He was there for me the nights I broke down missing my grandfather. Especially the day of his birthday. He stayed up with me and we sat on the phone and watched a movie on Netflix together. After a few months of us just talking he talked to me about his health problems. He didn't go into great detail though. Fast forward 8 months later he told me he loved me. I told him I loved him. This lasted 3 more months..

   One day he told me we had to talk, but he was too tired to do so that night. I asked him if it was anything bad and he said no. I asked him to promise me it wasn't but he also said no.. then he told me he didn't need to promise that because he would always be mine. So I waited for him to tell me the next day, but he said he was too tired again. He grew distant in the next week.. then he was in the hospital for a month. Cancer.. he had leukemia.. and it hit him hard in the year that I knew him. He was right.. I would be the last person he loved.. because he passed away and would never have the chance to love another.. my soulmate is gone..

   The friend that introduced me to him was my best friend.. she and I had a fallout a couple months before he passed.. after his passing we talked again.. but it did not last long.. as her husband found her just 3 weeks ago.. not breathing and blue.. out of nowhere she was gone too.

   So here I lie, in my bed unable to sleep.. looking through old text messages of the love I once had.. the man I wanted to spend my life with. The best friend I wanted to be there when I married this man. Both of them gone. I am surrounded by death, and I have nobody to talk to about it.. as the ones I would have talked to about it are the ones who are gone.

[kayc]

I am so sorry.  No one your age should have to go through this, let alone with three major losses so close together.  But we know life doesn't work that way, it can't begin to prepare us for this and there's nothing fair about it.  I only want to assure you that there will be more in your life besides just losses.  I pray your life will be enriched...I can't say who or when, but that it will happen someday.  It's a lot to handle having so much grief at once.  I've had more losses than I could count.  I have learned to look for joy in my life, people say they can't do that but I began this practice day 11 after losing my husband, my best friend, my soulmate.  I've suffered more losses since then, I've learned it's part of the cycle of life, none of us are guaranteed protection from loss, to some it enters later in life, to some throughout, to some when they're young but we're all hit sooner or later.  I've learned not to fear it.  To fear experiencing life and love because of the loss that might come would be to deprive ourselves of the greatest blessing there ever was.  I would not have wanted to miss one day with my George, even though the price has been great.  And my Arlie, my beautiful Husky/Golden Retriever, he was a joy in my life for 10 1/2 years, I called him my "soulmate in a dog" because he was perfect for me, the best dog there ever was.  Six months later my heart still grieves and I realize I will mourn him the rest of my life.  That's the weird part about grief, it has a beginning but not an ending...but it doesn't stay the same either, we couldn't handle it if it did...it evolves throughout our grief journey as we begin to do our grief work and adjust.  It gets to the point where instead of bringing the lump to our throat and pain in our chest, it brings a smile as we remember them.  I've reached that with my husband but not yet there with Arlie.  Or I should say it has a combination of sorrow and smiles as I remember our memories.

You can talk here, we're here listening...this place saved my life all those nearly 15 years ago when my world was suddenly and irrevocably shattered.  Here there were people I could relate to, but my family and friends had not experienced this.

I am sorry for all of your losses.

http://www.griefhealingblog.com/2016/04/in-grief-coping-with-multiple-losses.html

[MartyT]

I too am so sorry for the losses you've endured. Your story reminds me of an article I read just this morning ~ about cumulative losses and what can happen if we fail to find a way to process them: What Martin Luther King's Daughter Has to Say About Grief ♥️